Let’s start this conversation. Growth is f#cking hard. Painful, in ways.
It can be depressing and overwhelming, initially.
It may lead to rainbows and unicorns, but know this to be true – we often have to leave the familiar, the Known, and even those people and places that we still love in order to find our path towards peace and freedom.
That path isn’t easy, either. I read recently that it is estimated that only 2% of the population choose growth. This is largely because our primitive brain has not evolved to understand the positive aspects of growth.
The primitive, or downstairs brain (limbic region and amygdala) has not really evolved in thousands of years, and keeps us “safe” from anything that could potentially be harmful. To the amydala, the unfamiliar is unsafe. The primitive brain tells us to stick to the familiar. The safe. It tells us that we should stay in the cave, and tries to override change by creating neurochemicals that make us feel deeply uncomfortable and even fearful of anything that seems unfamiliar.
It is understandable to want to stay in a place of perceived safety, even if that safety makes us deeply unhappy.
Because sometimes, the path to peace downright sucks. Before we can find joy, the path winds through dark forests and up steep mountains. There will be times when we feel lost. There will be times that we feel we are in darkness, and all that we can see is the step directly in front of us.
We will have to confront those dark parts of ourselves – the skeletons in our closets and monsters under the bed – past trauma, dysfunctional patterns and programs – that we may have avoided our entire lives before. We may endure times of aloneness and even loneliness as we make our way on our very individual path.
We will lose people along the way; those that can not accept the new version of ourselves; or just can’t make the journey.
It’s hard, and sad, even heartbreaking, sometimes.
But we also gain new friends and family that more accurately reflect the reality that we consciously choose to live, rather than one that was chosen for us. Our vibe finds our tribe.🥰
Most importantly, we gain peace in knowing that we have chosen our own path.
Eventually, that decision will become the best decision we have ever made for ourselves. Our journey through those dark paths leads to bright sunshine and warm seashores. The dense woods become charming paths leading through bright glades and mirror-still pools as our mind’s new programs learn to create new realities.
Even in this upgraded reality, there will still be days that clouds move across the path and feel hard or sad. We may mourn for that which we left behind.
But it is 💯 worth it. I can not overstate that enough.
It is worth every drop of discomfort, every leap into loneliness, every disconcerting, uncomfortable or downright scary experience with those lost parts of ourselves and the hard process of stripping away of old, outdated was of thinking and being.
It is worth the pain. The “fertilizer”, to live a life of freedom as a conscious creator rather than as a slave to the programs and patterns instilled upon us by our parents, caregivers, peers and societal expectations.
If you need evidence of this, look to any human who has begun to live by this new shift in paradigm. I challenge you to find one person who would go back to the Matrix of our own implanted b.s.
But it’s still f#king hard. 😖
Did you know that when a caterpillar creates its cocoon, it doesn’t just sprout wings and fly away – it completely dissolves into a black miasma within that cocoon before Re-forming as the beautiful symbol of transformation we all recognize and most of us love? Growth and evolution is much like this.🥶🦋
It may feel like we go through our own period of hibernation and re-forming as we spend more time in “being” and self-examination and less time in “doing”.
This is also a necessary part of the process. Just as the caterpillar must quietly dissolve in its cocoon to become something more, we also have to become still and go inside of ourselves in order to dismantle all those faulty and outgrown belief systems. It may feel like winter.
There was a study done in which scientists injected Redwood trees with a chemical similar to adrenaline in order to prevent the trees from hibernating over winter. Every single one of these normally long-living trees died within the year.
Humans have times when we must metaphorically hibernate, as well, if we are to grow into a new season of flowers and warmth.
Even having that big-picture understanding that the short term, hard changes will eventually lead to long-term happiness, the process is still hard. So it is important to acknowledge and honor the discomfort and sometimes even pain that happens when we start this journey towards peace.
If you are on this journey, I honor you. I acknowledge the pain you may be going through as those old egoic patterns begin to fall away. As you deconstruct.
If you need support or a shoulder on your journey, know that you are surrounded by love and there are others that will find you on the path.❤️. I am one of them, and am sending huge hugs, care and encouragement along the way.
Big love.💖
– Terah
This Blessed Sacred Life 